Topic for
1997-1998:
Textual Commentary as Social Practice

For 1997-98, the PSCO brought together scholars of early
Judaism, scholars of early Christianity, and classicists to examine
interpretation as a social practice in the Mediterranean world of the
first through fifth centuries CE, from Philo of Alexandria through
Augustine of Hippo. Among the various literary forms in which
interpretative practice is expressed, we have chosen to focus on the
commentary as a genre (and the commentary mode within texts in other
genres) -- precisely the mode of writing that most appears to subordinate
the writer to the authority of the text under interpretation. In order to
make sense of commentary writing in late antiquity, we wish to situate it
within the context of ancient modes of reading, ancient modes of
construing the relation of text and meaning, and ancient modes of
transmitting knowledge, as these can be reconstructed within particular
communities and cultures.